Strawheart
by Tsarina Torment
Summary: A platonic 10 Days of LawLu - ten chronological drabbles as their relationship develops from strangers to nakama.
1. Laughter

**Laughter**

Law was no stranger to laughter. The act came in many forms, ranging from a quiet, barely-there, chuckle, to a full blown bellow from the stomach, and over the years Law had seen many people partake in the activity. He'd even done it himself, rarely, and usually on the subtler end of the spectrum. It wasn't as though he was always gloomy; even if enjoying his life meant remembering what had been lost so that he could have it, thereby hollowing out any joy he felt, he knew how to smile, knew how to laugh.

Mugiwara-ya's bounty poster showed a boy laughing. There was nothing _pirate_ about it, except the ever-increasing number beneath the picture, leaping over his own and laughing merrily the entire time, so Law expected him to be one of those people that never stopped laughing. Odd for a pirate, maybe, but once a line of insanity was crossed, anything was possible.

He hadn't been laughing the first time they'd met. He'd been a man on a mission – no _boy_ about him as he crashed into an auction hall to save an acquaintance then punched a tenryubito in the face despite knowing the consequences – and while Law's assessment of insanity was proven correct, if not for the signature hat and the odd scar beneath his eye he would never have recognised him as the same person on the poster.

He hadn't been laughing the second time they'd met, either. In fact, he hadn't been doing much of anything, except bleeding out and challenging Law, both the same and different to the challenge at Sabaody – "leave it to me! I can do it myself!"; _are you good enough?_ – face stained with tears, snot and blood in a picture of defeat.

It wasn't until two years after their first meeting that the man finally, _finally_ , showed Law the laugh his poster had been imitating all along. It was a strange laugh, a _shishishi_ that sounded naïve and innocent, but Law already knew Mugiwara-ya was anything but. It was annoying, hearing that laughter and only seeing the façade for what it was because he'd already been there when Mugiwara-ya couldn't afford to keep it up. Law had known that the other captain was dangerous in some way because of his ever-rising bounty, but he now also knew that had they met under different circumstances he would have been sucked in by the façade, unable to see through to the complicated darkness hiding beneath the surface.

No, _hiding_ was the wrong word. Mugiwara-ya didn't know the definition of the word, proved that he was incapable of subtlety when he threw himself out of a cage suspended in mid-air before Law could finish hashing out the plan with him. It was _lurking_ , ready to show itself to the world when it was needed, but content to sit behind the _shishishi_ the rest of the time.

Law didn't have a clue if Mugiwara-ya himself was aware of his two faces and the implications it held. He was a lot of things, and complex was one of them, but the man himself was simple, blunt and to the point in a ridiculous oxymoron. Law couldn't imagine there being any deliberation behind the two halves that made Mugiwara-ya who he was.

The _shishishi_ clearly put the rest of the Straw Hats at ease, reassured by their captain's laid-back attitude and obviously just as aware as Law that it wasn't his only face. To Law, the _shishishi_ was terrifying, if only because he had seen what it was sitting over the top of and concealing so completely that if he hadn't known it was there, he would never have suspected.

It was a mask, but at the same time it was painfully genuine, and Law had never before encountered a laugh anything like it.

 **Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	2. Back to Back

**Back to Back**

Trust was an odd thing. On the one hand, Law trusted few people – his nakama… and then the list ended – but on the other hand, he trusted most of the world. It was two wildly different types of trust, of course. He trusted his nakama to always have his back, to keep him strong when he faltered. He even trusted them with his life, knowing that even if something went wrong they would save him.

Extending that same trust to the rest of the world would have been suicide, of course, and Law didn't. Instead, he held the world in a more cynical trust – the trust that they would be selfish people that always put themselves first and would never extend a helping hand without the guarantee of getting something in return.

It was that trust that let him enter alliances as and when required, tentative things that he could trust would break the moment the other party found a more tempting deal. Law liked that, Law could plan for that, plan around it, sometimes even plan its occurrence to cut off a particularly unsavoury – or clingy – ally once their use had passed.

Mugiwara-ya, he discovered halfway through Dressrosa, when he broke the alliance only to be completely ignored, could not be trusted at all. Law couldn't even trust him to be a wildcard, because as Doflamingo had proven, he could be manipulated. He just couldn't be manipulated _reliably_. Sometimes it was simple – the Mera Mera no Mi, the fiasco with Bellamy – but then there were other times when he ignored things he should be rightfully distracted by. Law, like Doflamingo, had no idea why Mugiwara-ya had left the coliseum without claiming the Mera Mera no Mi, despite it being a precious memento of his brother. By the laws of manipulation, such an act should not have been possible.

It was later again, still in Dressrosa, because apparently that city was determined to make him face far more than he was comfortable with, that he realised that he didn't trust Mugiwara-ya as an ally because he trusted him like one of his nakama. He played it off to Doflamingo, laughing in his face about how he would be defeated, but the revelation terrified him.

He'd never let someone get so close so quickly. Even his nakama – even _Bepo,_ unassuming, apologetic Bepo – had taken months, if not years, to fully trust, but here Mugiwara-ya was, seemingly overnight, dragging enough faith out of him that he didn't expect a dagger in the back if he turned away.

He would be more likely to get a rubbery arm slinking around his waist, or maybe even the warmth of the slightly smaller figure pressed against him as they faced the world together, back to back. Their alliance was only meant to last until Kaido, and Law had only expected it to last until they died in Dressrosa, but now there was a part of him that thought it would be nice if that warmth was always there.

 **Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	3. Healing

**Healing**

The aftermath of Dressrosa was painful. Law's arm was the most insistent, despite all the treatment it received, and the various bullet wounds ached because he was too proud to accept the little princess' healing powers beyond what was needed to restore his arm. His heart hurt the most.

It was over. Doflamingo was defeated – not dead, and Law wasn't sure what he thought about that, nor was he sure what Cora-san would have thought – and Law was finally free, but the doubt had spilled into the gaps left by vengeance until it became a physical ache in his heart itself. Heartache was a fascinating thing; Law knew that if he used his abilities, his heart would seem perfectly fine. There was no damage at all, beyond Vergo's abuse a lifetime ago, and yet he felt it with a startling clarity that his meeting with Sengoku did nothing to help.

The encounter was nothing but confusion, ideas forced upon him that he'd been too blind to see. No, that was wrong. Ideas he'd known were there but refused to see because it was easier to just think that Cora-san wanted Doflamingo dead than accept that Cora-san had wanted Doflamingo _healed_. Not just Doflamingo, either, but the ungrateful brat he'd thrown everything away for to cure. Cora-san had had the biggest heart of anyone Law had ever known, and it was time he stopped disgracing his memory by pretending otherwise.

It hurt, stripping away the lies he'd built up around himself as he ran to the ships with an Admiral on their tail, and if he stumbled once or twice no-one needed to know it was for any reason other than his physical wounds. He barely paid attention to the pathetic attempts of the pirates grovelling to be accepted as Mugiwara-ya's 'sons'. It didn't concern him anyway; he had no intention of bowing to anyone, no matter what he owed them. Mugiwara-ya's refusal cut through his musing.

 _Free_.

Law wanted to be free too. He wanted his demons to fade away until he could live outside of their shadows, enjoying life as Cora-san had wanted him to. Freedom had been no longer having to hide from Doflamingo. Freedom had been a distant dream he'd fight and then die for, except he wasn't dead and Doflamingo no longer cast a shadow over him.

Freedom was something he finally, finally, had, and he didn't know what to do with it. It was too big, too vast for him to comprehend, but there was Mugiwara-ya smiling and establishing his own freedom as if it wasn't something so hard to understand after all.

Law wasn't a follower, would never be a follower, but as a doctor he knew the importance of positive influences and, well, his alliance with Mugiwara-ya wasn't over yet. He wouldn't stoop to a sake cup, but he would observe and learn whatever Mugiwara-ya would show him about this thing called _freedom_ for as long as their alliance lasted.

 **Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	4. Captain

**Captain**

Seeing the faces of his nakama again was something he'd expected to be bittersweet. He'd abandoned them, never daring imagine that he would see them again despite what he'd said when they'd left him on Punk Hazard. Seeing them again would mean facing his betrayal – so many months later, they had to have realised he'd lied, but Bepo's vivre card still led to Zou so his navigator, at least, was still there.

When Law finally found them, they didn't give him a chance to apologise, wrapping him in hugs and unconditional love, and he wondered what he'd done to deserve such undying loyalty from this rag-tag bunch he'd collected from all over North Blue and the Grand Line. They kept him a willing prisoner in the forest for hours, talking over each other as they hurried to make up for the past months of separation, and by the end of it the butterflies that had threatened his stomach were nowhere to be found.

His crew at his back, he finally felt on an even keel with Mugiwara-ya, no longer outnumbered and alone on a foreign ship, and proudly led them to rejoin with their allies (it was more that they pulled him along, knowing the paths far better than he ever would, and he regretted that he hadn't been there to explore and learn alongside them).

The idea that the Straw Hat crew wouldn't be complete never crossed his mind until he heard the news. Mugiwara-ya was a beloved captain. He'd seen that as he travelled with them, watching the crew bend over backwards for him, not out of obligation but because they _wanted_ to. Out of their two crews, it was his own that he'd expected to find fragmented, not Mugiwara-ya's.

He didn't know the full story, but he was sure he'd been told everything; Mugiwara-ya wasn't the type to hold anything back, even if it was the splintering of his own crew. Law concluded that the rubberman himself therefore only knew part of the story and couldn't fault him for wanting to hare off and retrieve his wayward cook, even if it was inconvenient timing.

There was nothing he could do for Mugiwara-ya and the Straw Hats. He'd never experienced his own nakama leaving – in fact, after finding that all twenty of them had waited faithfully for his return despite his lies, he didn't think there would be anything that would pry them from him now – and emotional support was well outside his expertise. Physical wounds he could heal, but not mental.

They were both captains, but that didn't make them instantly compatible. A captain was shaped by his crew – manipulated into shape, in Law's own experience, although his nakama had done it with nothing but love – and Law could no more comprehend what was going through Mugiwara-ya's mind as he could Doflamingo's. He stayed back, gave the man space, and waited for him to push through, because that was the only way he knew to help.

 **Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	5. Separation

**Separation**

Law had known that Mugiwara-ya would go to find Black Leg-ya. The rubberman had declared as much, and he'd learnt that when he said something, it happened. Not even the exit was a surprise, although he wished the other captain would sometimes think things through. How was he going to guarantee landing on the Sunny, and even if he managed to hit what was comparably a small target, wouldn't the impact smash the ship apart?

There was no sound of a splintering boat, nor cries for help beyond the terrified shrieks of the poor victims of Mugiwara-ya's insanity, so Law assumed that he'd managed yet another miracle – this one rather minor considering his portfolio to date – and ended up safely on his ship. Having no more reason to hang around at the site of the unorthodox departure, Law led his crew back to their camp to prepare for their next step.

He had no idea what chaos Mugiwara-ya was about to unleash, but whatever it was there was nothing he could do about it so the best thing to do was focus on the plan. Being able to spell out the plan without interruption was surprisingly odd. The four Straw Hats sat in on the meeting, left behind in what Law suspected would be a futile attempt at subtlety, were content to listen silently without their captain causing a ruckus, and his own crew always let him speak (the complaints would come later, the moment he finished talking). Even the Wano delegation were quieter without Mugiwara-ya to egg them on, and while it should have been _right_ , managing to explain the entire plan without a single interruption felt _wrong_.

Well, making plans without his ally was hardly a standard way to go about toppling a Yonkou, so he attributed his unease to that. Mugiwara-ya never let him finish, but he did at least seem to pay attention to what little Law managed to say before the topic was changed. At least, he'd obeyed phase one of the plan in Dressrosa, so Law liked to think he'd been listened to at least a little.

Not knowing exactly what was going on with his allied captain continued to gnaw at his mind for what ended up being a month lurking under the sea in his beloved submarine (and keeping Robo-ya away from the delicate machinery). Law was no fool – the attempt at subtlety would fail spectacularly, and Mugiwara-ya would likely end up in confrontation with a high-ranking member of the Big Mom pirates (or worse, the Yonkou herself). What he didn't know was how far-reaching the consequences would be. The worst case scenario would be that they'd end up fending both Yonkou at once – which would be almost certain death – and he would love some warning if that ended up being the case so he could improve his and his crew's chances as much as possible.

The truth was beyond even Law's calculations, and if he was honest most of the article read like a hoax. Calling Mugiwara-ya a mastermind behind any plan was a stretch, and he sympathised ever so slightly with Bege, who he suspected had been the actual mastermind – or had attempted to be so, until Mugiwara-ya abandoned the plan and did his own thing.

Still, there was something appealing about being allied to a member of the Gokou, even if the power balance had once again shifted away from him, and Law was looking forwards to their next meeting (now that he knew it wouldn't involve Big Mom hot on their heels, anyway).

 **Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


End file.
